Feel the Motion with Virtual Reality Flight Simulator
Researchers at Auburn University are exploring a new means of flight simulation with a motion-based virtual reality flight simulator that allows testing flight control by feeling the motion of an aircraft.
“This equipment gives us the opportunity to provide potential partners like the U.S. Army or U.S. Navy with an unprecedented way of conducting simulations, but it also provides us with an opportunity to investigate new means of conducting flight simulation itself," said Umberto Saetti , Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering. "We look forward to this new world of flight simulation and the endless research opportunities it brings.”
Transcript
00:00:00 The approach taken by this lab is to try and merge the latest technology in virtual and augmented reality with motion-based platforms and full-body haptic suits in order to create an immersive extended reality simulations that can be suitable for research. Each one of these simulation units can be used to replicate multiple forms of aircraft or rotorcraft and to help study human machine interaction, advanced pilot training methods, as well as advanced flight controllers. Past approaches relied on large and heavy systems with large projected screens that were mounted on top of the motion base itself such that the motion base would have to carry a lot of weight. And so with the advent of virtual reality, we can use the virtual reality goggles rather
00:00:39 than the large projected screens to make the mass on top of the motion platform much lower and render the motion of the simulator more agile. In the past, you know, you would need a very large motion simulator for only one aircraft. Here the cockpit is fully virtual so you can basically swap the aircraft so you can recreate the simulations for any kind of aircraft you’re interested in without replacing the entire simulator, which in the past would cost millions and millions of dollars. So these simulators will also be used to enhance integration in the sense that students will have the chance to consolidate their knowledge of flight dynamics by feeling the motion of the aircraft firsthand and to implement and test the flight control laws that they come up with in class.